So....more disassembly of the 85 442. I had pulled off and chucked the A.I.R. pump and tossed it in a box, brackets and all, and although I have an NOS pump and an older reman unit, I didn't think much about it. So today I pulled it out and was going to take the pulley and brackets off and put them in my box of "powdercoat parts" that I'm going to take to the powder coaters, eventually. I picked up the pump, and for fun I figured I'd just turn it by hand (always clockwise, kids). It spun for about 1/4 turn then got tough for a bit and felt like it was dragging. Hmm. Well, it costs me nothing but time to pull the back cover and scope it out. Always wanted to take a smog pump apart. The thing is, something has to happen. Can't run the pump like this as if it seizes up, the pump belt would smoke like a b**ch and ruin a weekend most likely.
Popped off the rear casing bolts and the pulley bolts. Pulley bolts had a yellowish thread locking compound. The rear cover has a fat and skinny alignment pin on each end. It's important because it perfectly aligns the rear cover with vane shaft with the inner drum bearing and vane bearings. The drum is a bit tight as far as clearance than what I was expecting.
Found out the rear bearing was gobbed full of dirty grease. It was gummy and resisted all efforts to turn easily. The bearing inner race (sleeve) that was tack welded on to the rear cover was globbed with dirty, gummy grease too. Best I could tell the vane bearings on the shaft were fine. The front bearing is sealed on front and rear, so no issues there. IIRC, the front bearing is the same one used on the alternator. May not be, though. Problem is, if the front bearing is having issues, it's like the OEM U-joints. Sealed in place with injected plastic. Bearing has two lines on the circumfrence that are knurled. This aligns with the two deep grooves in the casing where the plastic is injected. These can be serviced, but it's a huge PITA to swap out. Then you have to use another method like epoxy to seal in the new bearing.
Anyway, the smog pump is considered not serviceable and to simply replace it. Well, I'm here to tell you, it CAN be serviced, to a point. As long as your bearings are good.
I checked the vanes by looking down inside the unit, and they're of the melamine woven glass stuff. Brittle as heck, but pretty strong. Problem is, there's no replacement vanes anywhere. They moved freely and weren't damaged or cracked, so I left them alone. The rear bearing and bearing plate are pressed into the rear of the drum, and it takes some creativity to get it out. It would need pressing back in if you did remove it.
I came to the conclusion that the front bearing seemed to still be good. And being sealed on both sides, nothing seemed to be leaking out, so nothing was getting in. The vane torrington-style bearings were also figured to be good, but probably got some dirt in them. And the rear was just globbed up. So after thinking about it, I figured since I got extra pumps, what's it going to hurt to try and clean/lube it and maybe get another 40 years out of the original?
I figured I'd give it some aluma blast coating and repaint the black rear cover too. This means I have to remove that "fan" on the front of the pump. Normally, these fans are destroyed when someone goes to remove them. Picked up a little trick doing some research on how to remove it. There's a little gap in the front of the pump casing for the air inlet where you can push a flat plastic trim remover tool in there and tap on the fan and rotate the fan as you go. The fan will come off as it's just pressed on. Work carefully, and no damage. Those fans are UNOBTANIUM.
So what can I do now? I took some CRC brake kleen spray can and went to work inside the drum and cleaned out the vane bearings best I could. Then sprayed the globbed rear bearing, and let it sit a bit for the brake kleen to work on that nasty crud for a bit. Shot it again a few more times until it drained clean, so I wiped it down and cleaned the rear cover shaft and inner rear bearing race too.
Lubed up the rear cover shaft and inner race with bearing grease, and then took a wooden coffee stir stick with a dab of bearing grease on the end and started packing the grease into each of the 4 vane bearings. PITA, but worked slow and steady, pushing grease up into those roller bearings.
Then I test assembled the unit and put the rear cover back on. Put the front pulley back on temporarily and rotated the pump clockwise while facing it, as always. The darn thing started puffing air out the discharge hole. Super smooth and easy to rotate by hand. No squeals, no hangups, and everything seems to be working nicely.
I didn't take any pictures, but now the only thing left to do is clean it up, give it a fresh coat of paint where needed (and give it a spritz of yellow on the outboard side like the factory did) restamp it with the "FP" and it's good to go.
Turns out the "fix" was it just needed some bearing cleaning and re-lubing and it's working like a champ again. It happens. The unit pulls in unfiltered air all the time and it pumps ALL THE TIME when the engine is operating. It just goes to the air cleaner or the exhaust system depending on conditions for the switching valves.
Pics below are not mine, but I supplied them so you can see what's inside and stuff I dealt with. Apparently even the Corvette guys just de-vane the pumps so they don't do anything. Popular option.
Typical smog pump. Looks very similar to the one you have/had on your car when it was new.
Take one apart and you get a lot of this. There's actually another vane that goes in there, but not shown. The other end of that drum goes through the front bearing where the pulley hub mounts to.
Here's that gap you see where you can put that trim tool and push off the front plastic fan. Fan's not installed here to enhance the look so you can see that gap.
Here's the guy tapping off the fan using the plastic trim removal tool in that slot. Pretty good idea actually.
Here's the back cover inside. The shaft goes through the vane bearings, and the calipers are on the rear bearing inner race.
Here you can see the rear bearing and inside are the vane bearings (different pump, same bearing, better picture). There's two vanes with 2 bearings apiece inside. That outer ring around the rear bearing would need to be forced out from the inside, and various methods could be used to remove it. Each with it's own issues. I found it easier just to clean the bearings and re-lube. We'll see how that goes.
You can see below where the grooves are where the molded injected plastic was around the front bearing. This guy decided to grind out the plastic with a dremel and reinstall the new bearing with expoxy.
Here it is with the new front bearing epoxied into place. You can see the air inlet gap here much better where that tool goes in from the back to tap the fan off. They call it a "rotating filter".
He took his all the way down to parade rest and smashed the vanes because he just wanted it to spin around and do nothing. That's always an option if you don't have smog tests in your area. But if not, you need one that works.
Popped off the rear casing bolts and the pulley bolts. Pulley bolts had a yellowish thread locking compound. The rear cover has a fat and skinny alignment pin on each end. It's important because it perfectly aligns the rear cover with vane shaft with the inner drum bearing and vane bearings. The drum is a bit tight as far as clearance than what I was expecting.
Found out the rear bearing was gobbed full of dirty grease. It was gummy and resisted all efforts to turn easily. The bearing inner race (sleeve) that was tack welded on to the rear cover was globbed with dirty, gummy grease too. Best I could tell the vane bearings on the shaft were fine. The front bearing is sealed on front and rear, so no issues there. IIRC, the front bearing is the same one used on the alternator. May not be, though. Problem is, if the front bearing is having issues, it's like the OEM U-joints. Sealed in place with injected plastic. Bearing has two lines on the circumfrence that are knurled. This aligns with the two deep grooves in the casing where the plastic is injected. These can be serviced, but it's a huge PITA to swap out. Then you have to use another method like epoxy to seal in the new bearing.
Anyway, the smog pump is considered not serviceable and to simply replace it. Well, I'm here to tell you, it CAN be serviced, to a point. As long as your bearings are good.
I checked the vanes by looking down inside the unit, and they're of the melamine woven glass stuff. Brittle as heck, but pretty strong. Problem is, there's no replacement vanes anywhere. They moved freely and weren't damaged or cracked, so I left them alone. The rear bearing and bearing plate are pressed into the rear of the drum, and it takes some creativity to get it out. It would need pressing back in if you did remove it.
I came to the conclusion that the front bearing seemed to still be good. And being sealed on both sides, nothing seemed to be leaking out, so nothing was getting in. The vane torrington-style bearings were also figured to be good, but probably got some dirt in them. And the rear was just globbed up. So after thinking about it, I figured since I got extra pumps, what's it going to hurt to try and clean/lube it and maybe get another 40 years out of the original?
I figured I'd give it some aluma blast coating and repaint the black rear cover too. This means I have to remove that "fan" on the front of the pump. Normally, these fans are destroyed when someone goes to remove them. Picked up a little trick doing some research on how to remove it. There's a little gap in the front of the pump casing for the air inlet where you can push a flat plastic trim remover tool in there and tap on the fan and rotate the fan as you go. The fan will come off as it's just pressed on. Work carefully, and no damage. Those fans are UNOBTANIUM.
So what can I do now? I took some CRC brake kleen spray can and went to work inside the drum and cleaned out the vane bearings best I could. Then sprayed the globbed rear bearing, and let it sit a bit for the brake kleen to work on that nasty crud for a bit. Shot it again a few more times until it drained clean, so I wiped it down and cleaned the rear cover shaft and inner rear bearing race too.
Lubed up the rear cover shaft and inner race with bearing grease, and then took a wooden coffee stir stick with a dab of bearing grease on the end and started packing the grease into each of the 4 vane bearings. PITA, but worked slow and steady, pushing grease up into those roller bearings.
Then I test assembled the unit and put the rear cover back on. Put the front pulley back on temporarily and rotated the pump clockwise while facing it, as always. The darn thing started puffing air out the discharge hole. Super smooth and easy to rotate by hand. No squeals, no hangups, and everything seems to be working nicely.
I didn't take any pictures, but now the only thing left to do is clean it up, give it a fresh coat of paint where needed (and give it a spritz of yellow on the outboard side like the factory did) restamp it with the "FP" and it's good to go.
Turns out the "fix" was it just needed some bearing cleaning and re-lubing and it's working like a champ again. It happens. The unit pulls in unfiltered air all the time and it pumps ALL THE TIME when the engine is operating. It just goes to the air cleaner or the exhaust system depending on conditions for the switching valves.
Pics below are not mine, but I supplied them so you can see what's inside and stuff I dealt with. Apparently even the Corvette guys just de-vane the pumps so they don't do anything. Popular option.
Typical smog pump. Looks very similar to the one you have/had on your car when it was new.
Take one apart and you get a lot of this. There's actually another vane that goes in there, but not shown. The other end of that drum goes through the front bearing where the pulley hub mounts to.
Here's that gap you see where you can put that trim tool and push off the front plastic fan. Fan's not installed here to enhance the look so you can see that gap.
Here's the guy tapping off the fan using the plastic trim removal tool in that slot. Pretty good idea actually.
Here's the back cover inside. The shaft goes through the vane bearings, and the calipers are on the rear bearing inner race.
Here you can see the rear bearing and inside are the vane bearings (different pump, same bearing, better picture). There's two vanes with 2 bearings apiece inside. That outer ring around the rear bearing would need to be forced out from the inside, and various methods could be used to remove it. Each with it's own issues. I found it easier just to clean the bearings and re-lube. We'll see how that goes.
You can see below where the grooves are where the molded injected plastic was around the front bearing. This guy decided to grind out the plastic with a dremel and reinstall the new bearing with expoxy.
Here it is with the new front bearing epoxied into place. You can see the air inlet gap here much better where that tool goes in from the back to tap the fan off. They call it a "rotating filter".
He took his all the way down to parade rest and smashed the vanes because he just wanted it to spin around and do nothing. That's always an option if you don't have smog tests in your area. But if not, you need one that works.
